From there, it travels northeast back to another interchange along the Tōhoku Expressway in the town of Kosaka.

It is jointly owned and operated by East Nippon Expressway Company and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT).

The heat is then released during heavy snowfall events to clear snow off the expressway.

The first section of this expressway was opened on 25 July 1991 after nine years of planning and construction that cost 1.158 trillion yen (about 1 billion US dollars).

[1] An experiment was conducted by MLIT to determine what the effects of lifting tolls along the expressway north of the city of Akita would be.

[14] By August 2011 the expressway had been extended in various stages all the way north from the city of Akita to Futatsui-Shirakami Interchange in Noshiro.